


cathode (interlude ii)

by XellyChan



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, M/M, casual death mention, minor depersonalization disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 09:29:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2423732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XellyChan/pseuds/XellyChan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re disconnected, the words tumbling through Miles’ brain, puddles with afterthoughts, snippets of dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cathode (interlude ii)

**Author's Note:**

> idk either

The bed creaks under Waylon’s knees, the rock-sway motion of a boat on a river. Miles thinks there’s a joke in that, somewhere. But then, Miles always thinks there’s a joke in everything. 

"Is it gallows humor when you’re dead?" He asks, running his thumb over the warm strip of skin peeking over Waylon’s boxers. There’s a thoughtful noise as Waylon settles down to sit on Miles’ stomach, leaning his back on raised legs. 

"I didn't think you liked being choked," Waylon says instead of a real answer. Miles laughs, a little breathless with smoke and Waylon’s weight on top of him. Reaches up to touch jeweled bruises around Waylon’s neck, feels a steady pulse under cool papery skin. Waylon brushes his hand away, a thoughtless bored knock of knuckles on wrist. 

Stop that, the motion says. But it’s more of an after thought, Miles can feel it in the static, the groan of the bed springs as Waylon leans further back, leaves Miles’ hand on his hip.

A slow crooked grin slants across Miles’ face, drops both his hands to rest on Waylon’s thighs, fingers slipping under the soft cloth of boxers. “I can make exceptions.”

"A guillotine would be better," Waylon says, allowing the touch.There’s a joke in that too, Miles just has to find the right punchline. 

Waylon’s mood changes with the weather, and the road. Somehow it makes coping easier. 

Miles always feels a little humbled by it. A little terrified too. Sometimes he thinks— well it doesn’t matter what he thinks anymore. Not right now, anyway. The skin under his hands is warm, warmer than usual, but there’s a cold radiating from Waylon’s bones, it creeps into Miles’ blood. Dulls the static whisper, overrides it for the moment. 

They’re disconnected, the words tumbling through Miles’ brain, puddles with afterthoughts, snippets of dreams. Waylon is staring at the ceiling, tracing the shapes of water stains, painting an abstract world of plaster popcorn paint, off white and yellowed at the edges. They’re disconnected, the tenuous static link between them twisting and breaking off like an old radio with bad reception. 

It’s nearly a relief.

But it isn't.

So they touch, without meaning. Or heat.

A vague sort of instinct for closeness. 

The room smells like ash, a little like the sterile insides of a clinic too. It settles heavy on Miles’ tongue, makes the muscles in his legs twitch, a snapburst of static that recedes before it starts. It’s enough to jostle Waylon out of his bored fascination with the ceiling, and he flicks Miles’ hand, chiding. 

Miles laughs again, silent, spider tapping his fingers like he’s speed talking in Morse code. He gets another flick for his trouble, Waylon glaring at him from underneath hooded eyes. 

To Miles, Waylon looks beautiful like this. A gaussian blur, halo’d and nearly unreal in the numbness of the moment. Like the poetry Waylon sometimes murmurs under his breath when he thinks no one is listening. 

Beautiful in a way Miles isn't sure how to put into coherent thought, beautiful in a way he’ll try to write fragmented phrases onto motel paper pads later, then give up. The kind of beautiful that loses meaning when it’s realized in concrete ways. 

The static is building, the connection knitting itself back together has the Walrider stirs restlessly under Miles’ breast bone, and soon enough will begin kicking up agony in Waylon’s scar. Soon, but not now. So they continue the absent minded touch, letting the link trickle back in slow.

A new existence blossoming from the stillness.


End file.
